A FORMER employee of Google has said that he was motivated to speak out about the company's tax affairs by his belief in the final judgement.

Barney Jones, a former member of the sales-team at Google, told the Public Accounts Committee in May that the company's vice-president, Matt Britten, had been wrong to say that the company did not sell products in the UK and therefore paid no tax there. The Committee subsequently published a report, which said: "To avoid UK corporation tax, Google relies on the deeply unconvincing argument that its sales to UK clients take place in Ireland, despite clear evidence that the vast majority of sales activity takes place in the UK."

Mr Jones told The Guardian, on Thursday of last week: "I don't think there has been any real benefit to me for standing up. The main benefit is knowing that, as one day we will all be held accountable for our actions - I believe that Jesus will hold us accountable for the good and bad we have done - I will know that I didn't allow something within my power to just slip through. But I stood up and said: 'Well, actually this is a wrong thing, and this is something we have to think about.'

"If no one had stood up and said: 'I don't think this is the right thing,' we would not be having this particular debate about international taxation and therefore the British taxpayer would not get all of the money needed to build the next generation of hospitals and schools."